The First 48

Every nurse, one time or another has thought about becoming a traveler; you see all the beautiful pictures and fun adventures these nurses are going on and why wouldn’t you want to be in on that too? But no one ever tells you about the shit storms that can ensue on your way or the in-between of the adventure. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being a travel nurse. I think it is an amazing experience that can really open you up as a person, but you have to be ready for that growth. I’m going to tell you about my first 48 hours of being a travel nurse, but don’t fear, this does not happen to most nurses. Alright, lets get to my tragicomedy!

I’ll start with a little background so you can get some context. I was 24, living in Wilmington, NC (a college beach town). I was working in a Surgical Trauma Neuro ICU at a local teaching hospital and I was ready to broaden my horizons. I had just recovered from a torn rotator cuff and labrum surger (I’ll tell you all about that shit storm in another blog post). [FT1] You get the picture…ripe 24-year-old, ready for a new world, sick of being injured, hungry for more life. I decided I was going to become a travel nurse, did a lot of research trying to understand the in’s and out’s of the trade, doing my best to prepare for the major transition. I narrowed down the cities I was interested in and eventually settled on Seattle, WA. Literally coast to coast. I couldn’t have chosen a further point. After I got a contract, I started looking for housing, I searched the internet high and low for housing leads and found a place right in downtown Seattle by Pike Place Market. I thought, “what better place to live?!” I had searched a lot of different sites for housing, but this one was on Craigslist. I know, I know….but hear me out. While the remainder of this story may serve as a good example of why not to use Craigslist, I disagree! I have primarily used Craigslist to secure housing as a travel nurse, BUT, you have to be smart.

Back to the story. I had found this, now what I know in hindsight (it really is 20/20), too good to be true. I contacted the owner and we set up a time for a phone call; I thought this would ensure he was legit. We had a phone call, there was a bit of a language barrier which was the only off feeling thing about it. I shrugged that off, which is somewhat reasonable. He sent me over a lease, I had my Dad look it over, everything seemed to check out. I signed it and now it was time to pay the security deposit and first months rent of $2400 up front. I insisted on using PayPal (give me a little credit!) just in case something went wrong.

A few weeks later and my car was packed literally to the brim, not even an extra singular roll of paper towels would have fit (this was a running joke for the trip because the car was so packed this roll of paper towels kept falling on us the entire 45 hours). I had worked the night prior so my friend who agreed to drive out with me took the first shift. We had 72 hours to make this trip. It was a Friday morning and I started work Monday, in other words, we were on a mission. We make our way across the country (the actual trip itself went smoothly) and arrived around 11:30PM PST on Sunday night. I had been in contact with the “landlord” the entire day about meeting and picking up the keys, giving him time updates as we neared my new home. Last point of contact was around 10:30PM confirming we would be arriving soon, he assured me that he would be there to let me in and give me the keys etc.

This is where things began to take a wrong turn….we make our way into downtown Seattle, (important to note, I’ve never been to Seattle or a big West Coast city) and we’re heading towards Pike Place and the streets in Seattle can be a little funky (if you know, you know) so we made some wrong turns, literally. First ridiculous event of the night ensues…we made a wrong turn, ended up under a literal bridge parking lot thing which is also a homeless camp (also if you know, you know). My friend and I had never really seen anything like that before much less a group of people literally shooting up heroin on the sidewalk. As we were attempting to make a very swift turn around out of this homeless camp we saw a group of people with needles in their arms and all casually doing some heroin. We were feeling pretty uneasy at this point, but shook it off and get back on course. We finally arrive to what I thought would be our final destination a nice complex of apartments right near the Puget Sound. I make the call to my “landlord” to let him know I have arrived and I get a busy signal. Try again, busy signal. That can’t be right I thought, so I tried from my friends phone, it rings, thank god. The man whom I had been speaking with answers and I tell him who I am etc. and he gets very weird and attempts to convince me that he is on his way to give me the keys but quickly changes his story to oh I actually left them at the concierges desk. Obviously at this point, things are looking bleak, but I had to believe it was going to be ok. We go walking around the building searching for the entrance and concierges desk, we finally found it, knocked on the door for a while until someone came to the rescue.

We made it inside, we’re talking to the person who works the desk and I explain that I am a new renter etc. the concierge says “oh yes! The owner was in here last week getting the unit ready!” my heart lifted to the sky, there was hope. He begins to search for my lease (that they keep on file) and asked me to pull my copy up as well to verify. He finds it and starts to compare it to the one I had and the final nail enters my coffin. “I’m sorry but you have to be careful about getting scammed” the concierge said without context. Of course I asked what he meant, said there must be mistake etc. etc. moving through the stages a grief before his eyes. Turns out, I got scammed, I’m in a city literally 3,000 miles from home, its nearly 1AM, I have no where to go, and know absolutely no one. I keep my cool for now, going into damage control mode, I am an ICU nurse after all. I start researching hotels only to find that there is some major conference in town and everything is booked. Everything.

I’m still keeping it together and problem solving the best I know how and I think Edmonds (this is the smaller town outside Seattle of where I would be working). Edmonds, Edmonds is a town nearby, let’s look for a hotel there. We find one, call, book it, and head that way. Unfortunately, my orientation is actually in downtown (I was working for a huge hospital system which was based out of downtown) the next morning at 8AM but I didn’t care, we had shelter for the night. We arrive to the hotel and I realize my business casual clothes were not readily available because I anticipated on being able to unpack a little before work the next morning. So now, here I am approaching 2AM in a hotel parking lot unpacking my ENTIRE car to get clothes out for work. I finally get the clothes, we get our room, get ready for bed, and I lose it. I wanted to cancel my contract, turn around, and head back home. I had no where to live, my friend was flying out in 2 days, I had no one and nothing. My dad talked me down, told me to stick it out for two weeks (thanks Dad!), and get some sleep. I set my alarm for 6AM with complete dread, thinking tomorrow is a new day and that it honestly can’t get much worse I thought.

My friend was going to drop me off since parking downtown in the morning is not the move (at least I knew that). I wanted to leave early so we had more than enough time to account for “big city” traffic and I did not want to be late. We are set to leave the hotel right on schedule, yay! I had forgot that the night prior I unpacked the whole car and haphazardly shoved everything back in it, including the passenger seat. We quickly take out as much as we can and my friend packed the stuff back in literally on top of me, we had no time to waste. While she was doing that, I had sat an open juice on the dashboard, big mistake. We take off out of the parking lot and juice goes everywhere, all over me, all over my stuff, and all over my car door (to this day the lock on my passenger doesn’t work automatically and due to this incident, I have been robbed twice). No time to pull over and clean it up, so I do my best to pat myself dry on the way. We were using Apple Maps (I never lived in a city where I really needed GPS so give me a break and I quickly switched to google maps, don’t worry) and it changed our route at least 6 times, delaying our ETA more and more. At this point I’m going to be late. I am frantically searching my phone for an email address so I can let someone, anyone, know I am coming but going to be late (in the orientation instructions it says the doors will close at 8AM and no one will be let in after). I couldn’t find an email so I gave up and we were getting close anyways, I actually might make it on time.

We pull up and its 7:55AM but it’s a massive hospital campus and I have no clue where I am going. I run into the building and stop at the front desk frantically asking the nice man where the classroom was. He regrets to inform me that I am at the wrong campus and that the classroom I am looking for is about a mile away down the road but no worries, a shuttle would be here in half an hour. My heart sank into the mantle of the earth, I didn’t have half an hour, my friend was already gone, so I started walking. You probably don’t know me, but I am 6’0, don’t usually wear business casual clothes (I’m a nurse, ok?), but today I am, including boots with a heel. The sweet old man failed to mention that the walk was entirely uphill (did you guys know Seattle actually has a TON of hills? I didn’t). I’m sweating my ass off when I finally arrive to correct location and thank god, they let me in the classroom. Turns out, I’ll never see these people again and the impression I made literally didn’t matter (hindsight is 20/20). I’m sitting there thinking things could not get worse unless my car caught on fire with all my stuff in it.

I made it through the day, it was no big deal, but now I had to figure out where I was going to live. Ok, bear with me for this side story but you need some context to understand this situation…Several months prior to moving, my friend had convinced me to do online dating, this wasn’t really a thing at the time in the town I lived in. She wanted me to “scout” out the Seattle dating scene, so I did. I ended up messaging with this guy whom I essentially ended up dating long-distance up until a week before I moved. We talked all the time, things were going great, and we had talked seriously about a future. Suddenly, a week before I am set to arrive, he pulls the plug. I was super bummed and confused. To make the rest of this story short, I made him realize he was in love with his ex, whom he immediately reconciled with and married. Go me. Anyways, he had given me contact information of a friend who he house sat for, she was a nurse practitioner in Tacoma. I had never reached out to her, but on this fateful day of homelessness 3,000 miles away from home I sent her a text “Hi there- X gave me your contact information.” I explained my situation and she said she had an extra room and I could come today. I was so relieved.

A weight had been lifted, I was no longer homeless and had bought some time to find a new place to live. I didn’t want to stay there long term because I was going to be commuting 75 minutes each way during rush hour. We decided to celebrate by going to a “cool” restaurant in Pike Place, we drove around for a solid hour looking for parking and ended up almost 2 miles away starving and once again grumpy. We walked around until we found a little bistro that looked like a “hole in the wall”, hoping it would be good. It wasn’t. It was literally an entrée straight out of my middle school in rural West Virginia. We chalk it up to the chronic bad luck and set our sights on my new house in Tacoma.

Finally, the hellish 48 hours seem to be coming to a close and I could come up for some air. We arrive to the house, the Nurse Practitioner friend of the guy who dumped me to marry his ex, the one I had literally never met or spoken to before, and her house was a total dump. It reeked of what I thought was cat pee. There were used pee pads all over the house, trash was everywhere in the kitchen, literally piles of shit in random places. I couldn’t believe it. I thought to myself, there is no way I can stay here. I sat on the tailgate of my car for a solid hour talking out pros and cons. I ultimately decided I had no other choice and to stay here until I found a place to move in Seattle. We spent the night cleaning and shopping for things that could rid my room of the awful smell. A fitting end to the last 48 hours. I laid in bed that night in disbelief and thought to myself, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.